Windows 10 22h2 security update [KB5034441] fails to install with code: 0x80070643

What in the world? Most people who have Windows computers won't know half of what is being discussed on this board, much less how to apply any of it. MSFT has made the world of computing an absolute b*tch. My Windows 10 computers have been running great up until the last few months. More and more issues with updates and other glitches have started to pop up. I think this is MSFT's way of forcing users to throw their hands up and just move to the next version of Windows. I've seen it play out like this since Windows 95.

@Gary_Ulrich1 -- just "hide" the specific update, and move on.

The next time that you run Windows Update, it will find any brand-new updates (such as the daily update to Microsoft Security Essentials) and will try to apply all the newly-released updates .

The only down-side is that your computer will still be vulnerable to the WINRE-related issue that the failed update is intended to fix. I do not know if there is any exploit "in the wild" that will leverage the security-issue. Nor do I know if your computer will be a target of the exploit. Just accept this "risk".

I agree and this needs to be repeated.

I am running Windows Home on my laptop and do not have BitLocker.

(I don't even use BitLocker on my Pro desktop.)

Microsoft Amateur Hour

I have a bigger problem, after the update failed to install I tried restarting my laptop, not the system won't reboot. Now what do I do? Laptop won't enter recovery mode on it's own. The only way to enter recovery is from Media Creation Tool USB.

Any suggestions for getting my system up and running again? Should I try using System Restore and restore to a system point on Jan 7th, prior to the updates?

@Chililock wrote: the only way to enter recovery is from Media Creation Tool USB.

Not true. More than 2 consecutive restarts, or a Windows crash quickly after restarting should start into the Recovery Console.

Should I try using System Restore and restore to a system point on Jan 7th, prior to the updates?

That is an excellent idea. After, if the update fails, it fails, but your system should still restart normally.

A general note: before Microsoft released this security update, your computer was vulnerable to an exploit of the security issue. It still is vulnerable, but has that created an issue that now causes you sleepless nights?

If there is exploit code "in the wild", and given the wave of publicity about this update, do you hope that your anti-virus software supplier will have updated their software to block that exploit from running on your computer? Does that hope let you sleep soundly?